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The $40 trillion US debt mark is now within reach, at $39.9 trillion on Tuesday. That equals roughly $116,000 for every American, or nearly two Bitcoins at today’s price.
Bitcoin (BTC) backers call the debt the best reason to own a scarce asset. However, a new Conference Board report shows that the same debt is draining the budgets that fund everyday crypto buying.
Why the $40 Trillion US Debt Hits Household Budgets
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s debt tracker showed $39.9 trillion on Tuesday, as did the Fiscal data dashboard. Interest alone burns through more than $2.8 billion per day, according to the foundation.
US Federal Debt As of August 13
The Conference Board, a nonpartisan business research group, released a report the same day. It modeled five fiscal paths, including a one-week US default.
In that scenario, small business loan payments jump by 21.6%, student loan costs by 8.7%, and housing costs by up to 6.7%.
The default case is a stress test, not a forecast. Congress has always raised the debt ceiling before missing payments, most recently after the 2023 standoff.
The baseline path is still heavy. The report sees debt at 154% of GDP by 2036. It also flags 2032 as the year Social Security’s main trust fund runs dry.
A retiree on a $2,100 monthly benefit could then lose about $170 per month.
“The national debt is not just a number on the government’s balance sheet—it affects the financial decisions Americans make every day,” David K. Young, president of the CEO Center at the Conference Board, said in the announcement.
Could Americans Even Afford Bitcoin and Crypto?
Bitcoin trades near $64,594 after gaining 0.5% in 24 hours, per BeInCrypto Markets data. At that price, the average debt share of $116,000 equals about 1.8 BTC.
Most buyers never get close to a whole coin. A JPMorgan Chase Institute study covering 2015 through mid-2022 found that the median buyer moved about $620 into crypto in total. That was less than one week’s take-home pay.
Today, that $620 buys less than 0.01 BTC. The debt squeeze eats the same money. The Conference Board’s higher-deficit path adds $55,000 to a modeled family’s five-year mortgage bill, over $900 per month.
The strain is felt most at the bottom. In the JPMorgan data, lower-income millennials paid about $45,400 per Bitcoin on average, versus $42,400 for top earners. Buying late, at high prices, was the norm.
Debt and crypto stress already overlap. An Office of Financial Research (OFR) brief studied areas where crypto use runs highest. The share of low-income households there holding mortgages nearly quadrupled between 2020 and 2024, from 4.1% to 15.4%.
